KNOXVILLE - Throughout the offseason, Butch Jones made it clear Tennessee needed to be a more explosive football team to chase loftier goals.
It was up to Michael Szerszen to deliver the version of the Volunteers their fourth-year head coach wanted.
Szerszen, Tennessee's associate director of strength and conditioning, took over daily duties with the football team in March. Szerszen - who had served as head strength and conditioning coach Dave Lawson's right-hand man the past three years - hooked up with Jones at the University of Cincinnati in 2010 after stops at West Virginia, Army and Eastern Michigan.
This summer, Szerszen molded the Vols leading into preseason practices this month.
"We wanted to give them the best possible product," Szerszen said last week.
How do you make a player or a team more explosive, anyway?
A common misunderstanding of summer workouts is that players simply lift heavy weights and run for extended periods of time, but with advances in sports science and training technology, the programs are much different for major college football teams like Tennessee.
Under Szerszen, the Vols used a combination of selected lifts (primarily the power clean and clean pull) in the weight room, plus position-specific agility- and speed-based training on the field.
"You think from just a strength standpoint, everybody thinks squats and bench," Szerszen said, "but you need those explosive movements, those power movements (like) the cleans and really training that explosive triple extension that ties everything together.
"It's the same thing out on the field. You think about this game, you think about this offense, this defense and the way the game is, Coach (Jones) always talks about '63 effort' - six seconds with three great efforts. We train that way. We train hard for six or eight seconds with short rests in between sprints and between agilities."
Lawson was Jones' strength coach all nine years he was a head coach, but Tennessee cited "philosophical differences" as the reason it parted ways with Lawson. Injuries mounted, though, and there were an oddly high number of shoulder injuries.
Szerszen said the Vols' transition from Lawson to him included "different approaches with the exercise selection." He and his staff ensured every lift or drill was done at full speed and added an element of competitiveness to the team's summer work.
In every college football team's preseason training camp every August, the talk is the same. Every player in every program had the best summer of his career and set personal weightlifting marks. Each team is bigger, faster and stronger.
The Vols are touting their summer gains, too, but they're using a different standard.
"We did a lot more stuff on the field, working on agility, working on balance, working on single-leg things, because in this game you're often on one foot," linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin said. "You're not always completely centered up. I think those have helped. With our explosive lifts in the weight room, I think you can tell a difference when you watch us on the field."
Szerszen said running back Jalen Hurd bench-pressed a 125-pound dumbbell 15 times with one arm, while cornerback Cameron Sutton did five repetitions of 245 pounds on a single-leg squat.
"I've seen a little bit of explosiveness being on the field and working out this summer," linebacker Darrin Kirkland Jr. said, "and I'm really proud of my body of work that I did in the summer, and hopefully I'll put it on the field.
"Really we've just worked on a lot of hip mobility and making sure guys are loose in their technique. (Szerszen) really brought the idea of cleans to our workouts. It's really helped everybody's explosiveness."
Szerszen credited the players.
"They were receptive and embraced everything we did," he said. "Everything we did, they attacked. I can't say enough about these guys. They're tremendous workers. It was a very special team this summer. I can't talk enough about the leadership.
"Seeing their confidence and seeing the difference in them is just tremendous. Everything we do, it's about these guys. We're trying to give them everything for them to maximize their potential."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.